1/23Look closely; those are the stock instrument bezels with the Auto Meter gauges melded seamlessly into them. You can have this with some basic supplies and ingenuity (and some of Steve Strope's talent).

'The back of your head is someone else's problem. It's not like you have to stare at it for hours on end or use it for critical gear changes. So you can leave its destiny up to the femme with the buzzin' clippers and call it good. Not so with the dashboard on the street machine. You're gonna stare that thing down on long road trips and need to consult it during gear changes and illicit top-speed testing. It better be right. It better be good.

The dashboard rebuild has come a long way since the standard plastic-polish rubbing and orange-nail-polish-on-the-speed-needle treatment. Steve Strope from Pure Vision Design in Simi Valley, California, has been rethinking the standard, and more recently, Redline Gauge Works in Santa Clarita, California, has come up with a way to swap out analog and geardriven cable systems for sleek new VDO innards. Each has developed a way to completely change the look and feel of the gauge face to any vibe you want; all you have to do is envision it. To that end, we have assembled some cool ideas from these two luminaries and even had Strope work some mojo in the CC/Rambler project dash.

2/23Behold the ugliness and the hacked-in test-fit gauges of the CC/Rambler. We wanted to keep the stock bezels and avoid the stripped look that comes from simply drilling the panel with a big hole saw or using sheetmetal.